How to vet a potential agent or manager

I often get asked for advice about pursuing agents and managers.  A lot of the questions I get revolve around how to get an agent to read your work.  It's not often I get asked questions that deal with the scenario of "I've caught him, now what do I do with him?"

So let's say a potential rep likes your work and calls you in for a meeting.  What now?  The most important thing to remember is that it might not always be best to go with the first agent or manager to show interest.  Not all agents and managers are created equal, and if you're selecting someone with that much power over your career, it's pretty damn important to determine if they're right for you.

The best rep isn't necessarily the guy at the fancy agency with three letters.  There are pros and cons to everyone.  It certainly sends a message about your place in the food chain when your rep is that bigshot WME agent with half of the hottest writers in town on his client list.  On the other hand - with that many whales demanding this guy's attention how much of a priority do you think you'll be?

In that light, the advantage of going with a smaller rep could be that you're more of a focus for them.  Also, they might have a little more hustle and the virtues of that can't be over-estimated.  But then again, smaller reps might not have as many doors open to them.

So how can you break the tie?  After polling a number of professional, working writers I know, I've distilled their advice into several questions you can ask in that initial meeting to figure out if this rep is the right rep for you:

What are your overall plans for me? 

What are your goals for first year? 

What is your strategy for [the spec that got you this meeting]? 

(If dealing with a manager) What agents do you want to pair me with? 

What are your expectations for development of new material? 

(If dealing with a boutique agency or management company,) how involved is the senior or named agent or manager?

How many notes do you give before sending out? 

How important are attachments? 

Do you send out "naked" specs?  (specs that don't have actors, directors, or producers attached.)

How much do you work with other agents/managers at the company? 

It's very important for you to go in there with a strong sense of who you want to be, and to communicate that vision to them at the meeting.  Regarding your next two or three projects, have an idea about what your brand is. This is the time for you sell them on who you are and show that you're doing the things you need to do to get where you want to go.

As an example, if you want to direct, how are you going to make a case for it? What's the next short you're gonna make? If you want to write studio films, what's the spec that's going to get you on that list? Whatever your long-term goals are, bring them up in the meeting.  This should be about getting as much information as possible as well as getting a sense of how this person would be to deal with.

Yes, the agent or manager is there to interview you to see if you mesh with them, but they also have to mesh with you.  Don't go home with the first guy you dance with just because he asks.  A bad rep can be worse than no rep.

Please feel free to leave any other advice in the comments.  I'd like to make this post an easy resource for those seeking representation.

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 1 & 2: "How did you get an agent?"

This week, it is my honor to be interviewing Jeffrey Lieber, a writer who's been very active in both film and television.  To some of you, his name might be most familiar as a co-creator of Lost.  Others of you might know him as the writer of the film adaptation of Tuck Everlasting.  For many years now, Jeff has been a working TV writer.  In addition to creating Miami Medical, he's also worked on The Whole Truth, Chase, Pan Am and Necessary Roughness.  His latest project is an FX drama called Crash and Burn, which is centered on the lives of stuntmen in the pre-CGI era of filmmaking.

Jeff is also known around the blogsphere for his list of 200 "Showrunner Rules," which are handily archived here thanks to fellow blog warrior Scott Myers of Go Into The Story.

And don't forget to follow Jeff on Twitter.

In our first segment, I dive right in and ask Jeff how he got his first agent.


In our second segment, Jeff discusses his first script sale, his first produced film, and his shift from features into television.



Come back every day this week for the remaining parts of the interview!

Part 3 - The early genesis of Lost 
Part 4 - The process of developing a show
Part 5 - Cable TV vs. Network TV
Part 6 - The Bitter Questions 

Webshow: Are Pitchfests Worth Doing?

The fall season means that many of your favorite shows finally return the airwaves, and the Bitter Script Reader is no exception!  Yes, as many of you have been asking for, the puppet is back!

This week, we address a topic I've been asked about via Twitter and emails - are pitchfests a good idea? 

The art of asking a good question

Though I've been doing what I can about keeping up with reader mail, there's no denying that the last few months I've fallen behind.  If you've sent an email and I haven't responded - either via the blog or directly - I'm sorry about that, but real life has gotten in the way a lot lately.  I had some time this weekend to dig into the mailbag and after rereading several emails I had set aside, I found I had a few things to say.

It's totally understandable that new people would be discovering the blog every week.  Heck, that's what every blogger hopes will happen.  It's a good thing to have an expanding audience.  However, I received more than one email that started with a sentence like, "I just discovered your blog and I wonder if you can tell me how to get representation."

I hope this doesn't come off as dickish, but the "How do I get an agent?" question is one of the most frequent questions any screenwriting blog has.  So when faced with a new blog of over 900 entries, it might be a good idea to poke around, maybe see if there are any relevant tags about "getting an agent."  I even have a whole video series on "I Wrote It, Now What Do I Do With It?"  I get that there are a lot of tags to go through, but you can do a word search for the appropriate tag, or even Google your question along with "Bitter Script Reader" and see what pops up.

Here's why I bring this up - I assume that the way most people approach me through the blog is roughly the same as how they'd approach any working pro in the industry - ESPECIALLY writers.  You're not going to get off on the right foot with those people if you ask them a question while pretty much making it clear you haven't done any legwork yourself.  When I find a new blog, I'll often take a glance through the archives to see what topics they've covered.  It's certainly something I do before I email someone for an answer.

This is a roundabout way of saying that if you are lucky enough to get the email address of a working pro, do a little research before shooting them an email.  I know that I'm far more likely to respond to a brief email from someone who clearly has made an honest effort to make sure I haven't already covered their query.  That's often the difference between an email that gets answered and an email that gets ignored in favor of more pressing ones.

Another point that you'd do well to consider - keep your email brief.  Most of you are pretty good about this, but every now and then someone will beat around the bush in their emails, maybe telling me their life story before settling on what will inevitably be a question asking if I can help them get an agent.  When I get one like that, I can't help but think that meandering queries like that are why they haven't gotten an agent yet.

I bring this up less to complain about the kinds of emails I get, and more to give you all something to consider as you write emails to agents and managers who you are approaching for representation.  You've got to make a good impression in a limited amount of time, so don't expose yourself as ignorant and don't make the email an imposition to read.

Interview with screenwriter F. Scott Frazier: Part 2 - "How do you get an agent?"

Part 1 - His stats and process

In this segment of my interview with screenwriter F. Scott Frazier, I ask him the question every writer gets from aspiring writers: "How did you get your agent?"


I've talked to Scott and he's agreed to answer any follow-up questions you guys have.  Just leave them as comments or email them to me and I'll pass them on for Scott to answer in a post sometime next week.

Part 3 - The Working Writer.
Part 4 - The Bitter Questions

Interview with TV writer Liz Tigelaar, creator of "Life Unexpected" - Part 3: "How do I get an agent?"

Part 1 - Breaking in as an assistant
Part 2 - First Staff Writer Job on "American Dreams"

I don't know a professional writer who doesn't get asked this question on a regular basis.  Heck, it's one of the questions that I'm asked most often.

"How do you get an agent?"

Our chat with Liz Tigelaar continues as she offers her suggestions and tells us how she got repped.



Part 4 - Selling a Pilot
Part 5 - Personal Themes in Writing
Part 6 - Genesis of "Life Unexpected"
Part 7 - First-Time Showrunner
Part 8 - Developing the second year of LUX
Part 9 - Dealing with network notes
Part 10 - Controversial LUX storylines
Part 11 - LUX lives on
Part 12 - Network overall deal, working on Once Upon a Time and Revenge
Part 13 - The Bitter Questions

"The Shit List" - Agents who don't give a damn

This is half-lark, half-serious.  I just got through a week where I had several sub-par scripts.  These weren't just "PASSES" they were "Ohmigod, you should be embarrassed to waste someone's time by sending these out!"  I've gotten used to seeing these over the years, but they're frequently the product of someone deciding to answer a query or perhaps someone in the company submitting something that a friend gave to them as a favor.

All the scripts I'm speaking of came into the various companies I read for through agents.  That's depressing on two levels.  First, these incredibly shitty writers - and I assure you, the scripts were inept not only in concept, but in basic story construction, dialogue, character depth and development and pacing - actually managed to impress someone with their writing enough that an agent actually took them on as a client.  Secondly, that agent, when confronted with a complete turd of a writing sample then got on the phone and convinced some schmuck at my company that this was worth two hours of their time.

There's a lot one could take from that, but I think two things are at the top of that list.  If this happened repeatedly from the same agent or manager, that person would lose ALL credibility with me.  I wouldn't trust anything they said was awesome because their submissions in the past would have shown they wouldn't know awesome if it walked into their office and stripped down to slinky lingerie.

The second point is one more relevant to writers out there - guys, there are lit agents with clearly ZERO standards or taste.  If those schmucks can get repped, anyone can.

Here's the half-lark: what if I spent the next six months or so keeping track of agents and managers like this?  What if I invited other script readers to do so and at the end of that, we publish the list.  We'll call it "The Shit List."  If you wanted, you could query these guys in the hopes of getting repped.  Now that comes with a fair amount of risk, for even if you could get a rep, would you want one who isn't known as a connoisseur of fine material?

Hmm... perhaps a side project could be for you fine readers to come up with deliberately terrible query letters, which will then be submitted to Shit List honorees.  It'd be interesting to see which, if any, result in script requests.

I can see an argument against this being that it's negative and bound to piss off agents.  I can see that, but if this list gained any credibility, perhaps it would shame some agents into being more discerning about the material they foist upon others.

Thoughts?

Lesson: When pushing your work, think outside the box

It's probably not any secret that when it comes to breaking in, writing a great script is often only part of the equation.  Your brilliant writing still needs to get noticed by people who can do something with it.  The problem - everyone in town is trying to get noticed to.  Anyone who's reading scripts already has more scripts than they can deal with - so getting someone to agree your writing is a major favor.

Nobody owes you a read.  And a young writer just starting out, if they're lucky enough to get representation, is likely to find themselves a low priority for that agent.  I came across this article about how Boardwalk Empire creator Terry Winter executed some unusual tactics to get his script into the right hands.  After getting his hands on a list of agents who accepted unsolicited submissions, he recognized the name of a guy he went to school with.  Problem: when he called up this guy, he found out the guy had become a real-estate attorney and didn't really know anything about being an agent.

Most writers probably would have said, "Crap" and bemoaned the lousy luck of their networking.  Winter instead had a great idea.

So we made a deal where I would create basically a phony agency with his name. I did this out of the Mail Boxes Etc. on Santa Monica Boulevard, and I got a voice-mail system and letterhead printed up. I said I’m gonna submit my work under your name, and if I get anything, I’ll give you ten percent like a real agent. 

I took a day off from work and hit like every sitcom office in L.A., which at the time, there were like 26 sitcoms on the air. And I just walked in wearing a baseball cap and said, Yeah, hi, I’m the messenger from this agency and here are the scripts you wanted. And I thought, all right, at least my scripts are in the building where people theoretically could hire me. 

A couple of weeks went by and I got a call on a Friday from Winifred Hervey Stallworth, who at the time was the showrunner for “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and she was calling for Doug, who was my agent. And she said, Yeah, Doug, it’s Win Hervey from “Fresh Prince.” I read Terry Winter’s scripts and really think they’re great. We’d love to maybe talk to you about having him come in to pitch. 

So I called Doug in New York. At this point it was like 4 in the afternoon in L.A. and 7 in New York, and he was already gone for the weekend. So I thought, Oh, God, I’ve gotta wait until Monday now. And then it occurred to me that Doug didn’t really know anything about being an agent, so I thought, you know what, I can just call and say I’m Doug and it’ll be easier to cut out the middleman. 

I called her and she said, Oh, great, Doug. Oh, you know, “Fresh Prince” is sort of a teenage-oriented show. Does he have like one more teenage kind of script? And I said, Yeah, he just finished a “Wonder Years” spec that’s really terrific -- which was a lie. I didn’t have anything else at that point; she had everything I wrote. 

I said, Terry’s out of town for the weekend, but I could probably get this to you by Tuesday. And she said, Yeah great, Tuesday’s fine. I hung up the phone, and from Friday night until Tuesday afternoon, I cranked out a “Wonder Years” script, and then I threw the baseball hat back on, went as a messenger again and showed up at the office, flung it in the door, made sure nobody saw me, because at this point I was like the messenger, the agent, the client …

So there you have it.  You've got to be your own biggest advocate.  You can read the rest of Winter's story here.

Here's what I like about this story - Winter used his resouces in a way that took advantage of the system, but wasn't arrogant or obnoxious about it.  Too many aspirings think that being their own biggest cheerleader means they have to be obnoxiously arrogant and overconfident.  I get emails now and then that read something like, "I am the greatest writer who ever lived!  I know this is the best script you'll ever read and if you turn it down, years from now you'll be sorry that you weren't the one who found me!"

Confidence is good.  Overconfidence is off-putting.  Sending me multiple emails also isn't a good idea to get my attention.  And a good way to REALLY piss me off is send me an arrogant email, then write by in a few days getting angry that I haven't replied one way or another.

Let me put it this way: have you seen those auditioners on The X-Factor who come in saying they're the next Mariah, Whitney, or whoever?  How often do those guys really blow you away when they sing?  More often than not they sound worse than a drunk Linda McCartney on karaoke night.  Then, when told they aren't making the cut - notice how many of them become combative.  Notice how many of them invite Simon to have sex with himself and then rant to the cameras how the competition sucks anyway and the show is full of people who don't know what they're doing - or they had to get rid of this person because they were just too damn good.

The screenwriting world is full of those types too, people who mistake their own arrogance as a virtue.  Don't be the guy who tells Simon to fuck himself.  Be the guy who walks his script into the office, takes the call that follows up and then leverages that into another submission.

Movie Industry Agent Wanted

I got sent this a while ago from a reader named Clint:


Movie Industry Agent Wanted (Mesa)

Date: 2011-06-10, 10:53AM MST
Reply to: job-aekt9-2432521565@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

Reputable, experienced agent wanted to sell screenwriter's scripts to producers, directors or film companies. Four are done, ready for pre-production or option, all of feature length and are registered with the Writers Guild. This is not a job for the beginner. It requires someone who has the insider connections with Hollywood and a proven record of successful sales within that industry. Screenwriter has agreement with an author to do his other five books as scripts and books are already published and solely owned by said author.

Of those done, two are of historical and factual content and never been done on film in their entireity. Another is a western done as a sequel to a successful movie in the 70's which starred the late John Wayne (no copyright violation) and the last one is based upon myth about a haunted lighthouse in Oregon. Two of the four can be filmed almost entirely in Arizona. Budgets would vary from low to high.

Compensation is just what the industry standard is. A flat 10% of what a script sells for after it is sold. There are no up front fees paid, again per industry standard.

For futher information make contact with an outline of your background and proven success.

I don't even know where to begin with this, except to say that even putting aside the foolishness of seeking an agent on Craigslist, this is a classic example of how NOT to write a query.

Let's treat this like those Highlights games and see if you can spot all the things this posting does wrong.

Reader question: using prior experience to get an agent and how to dodge the moving to LA issue

Hoss has a question:

About ten years ago, I wrote a couple of screenplays that were made into B movies, then I got sucked into an 8 yr Deadbooks web project, now I'm free again and am back to screenplays...

And need to get an agent.

If you were querying - which I'll probably have to do -

Would you mention the movies?

The web project?

And since I have no intention of moving back to LA, but love to visit ( I know the obstacles that that will create), when would you mention that?

Thanks for your help

Yes, mention any relevant experience. I've you've written professionally, mention it, scream it from the hills. Anything you can do to show that your hand has been stamped by someone on the inside can help. Having a few B movies produced gives you a serious leg up on a lot of the wannabes who are submitting.

Depending on what the web project is, I might suggest mentioning that too. I'm not very familiar with Deadbooks, but if money exchanged hands for you to produce some sort of creative writing, that speaks in your favor.

"I HAVE BEEN PAID FOR MY WRITING! PEOPLE TOOK MONEY THEY COULD HAVE SPENT ON SOMEONE ELSE AND SPENT IT ON ME! HOW MANY OF THE BLIND QUERIES IN YOUR INBOX CAN SAY THAT?"

Agent seeking is not the time to be modest - you've got an edge, so use it.

As far as not wanting to move back to LA... don't put that in the query. Don't put anything in the query that gives someone a reason to consider not representing you. Don't even bring it up until they ask. If you're lucky, that won't happen until they've read your stuff, decided they love it and might even have a stake in working on it even if you refuse to move to LA.

But if you tell them beforehand, "I'm not moving," what they hear is, "I am making this harder than it needs to be" or worse, "I have a naive view of how this business works." (You note you know this comes with problems, so I'm not calling you naive.) If you can hook the agent before this becomes an issue, then it means your writing is strong and possibly marketable.

90% of the people who tell me, "I want to write but I never want to move to LA. Why can't I just do everything over the internet?" are the sort of pie-in-the-sky dreamers who'd probably never cut it in this business even if they were in L.A. If I was in the business of responding to queries, I'd never request anything from someone who actually put that in their query because the numbers tell me that the writing wouldn't be worth the time it takes to skim.

(Yes, I'm sure that you, sir, the one about to write me an angry comment or email, is a complete exception to the rule and that once you lay out all the particulars of your situation, I'll have no option but to concede you know what you're talking about more than I do, but surely even you can agree that 90% of the people like you aren't that exception.)

I never would have said, "I'd love to play for the Detroit Lions, but I hate Michigan. Can't I just work from Seattle?" or "I one day want to be a Silicon Valley CEO, but can't I just do that from Vermont? It's all computers anyway." And I sure as hell wouldn't bring it up in a job interview.

But let's say you're a tech CEO who's so brilliant that the company is beating down your door. Then you can name your terms. You can say, "If I'm so awesome, I'm going to telecommunte from home and you can all work around me." When you're coming from a position of strength, you can make demands like that and be taken seriously.

In other words, with regard to your residency, if they don't ask, you don't tell.

Done Deal Pro interviews manager Jewerl Ross of Silent R Management

I came across a really interesting and candid interview with Jewerl Ross of Silent R Management. It covers a lot of topics including how Mr. Ross went from being an agent to a manager, his feelings on the business and what he looks for in a client.

I can also speak from experience that he's open to queries from new writers. He's read one, possibly two of my screenplays. I've been debating sending him my latest, particularly after reading this excerpt:

Is it risky for new writers to send their material out before getting a rep? What if they send it out and get many producers who pass, and then an agent signs them and doesn’t want to spec the script because it is overexposed?


I hear this complaint quite often as well. I think this is the wrong way to think about your material and the wrong way to think about reps. If you have never done anything—never been paid to write, never sold a script, are unrepresented—selling a big spec is the least of your worries, being overexposed is the least of your worries. What you need are advocates—fans—people who love you and love your writing. You don’t just need one of these, but many fans. The only way to get fans is to send your material to people. You can’t be precious with your material and super selective on who reads it. You can’t be worried about people stealing your ideas or fucking you out of money that doesn’t exist. You have to move your career forward and you can’t do that without people reading you.

[...]
Another reason people worry about overexposure of a script before it gets to a rep is because this is the only script they have written and they want to do everything perfectly. If this is the only script you have ever written and the only one you will write for a year or two, you are not a real writer and none of this advice is for you. For real writers, it doesn’t matter if one script is overexposed because you are writing two or three scripts a year. I tell people all the time: I don’t represent scripts; I represent writers!


That gives me some measure of hope because my current screenplay is unfortunately in a genre that seems to be oversaturated at the moment. I'm already starting on my next one, so if a lot of managers have the same mindset as Mr. Ross, perhaps my queries won't be in vain - assuming of course, that reps read the material and like the writing.

I don't like pinning all my hopes on a spec being received as a "writing sample." I'd always been told, "Agents are looking for something they can sell." Because of this, I steer clear of anything that has a limited or no market. I ended up stumbling into my current dilemma, but perhaps the screenplay might still do some good.

The rest of the interview is full of good stuff, so I encourage everyone to check it out.

Reader mail: Agents vs. Managers

Time to dip into the proverbial mailbag and answer a few reader questions, kicking things off with a question from regular reader Peter Dwight:

Agent vs. Manager...? Say some poor schmuck just needs a paying job. There's an impression that Agents get you the work, where Managers get your movie made. Your thoughts?

I know that no matter which answer I give, 50% of the readers will chime in with a contradictory opinion. If you're lucky enough to land an agent, that's probably all you need unless you find that he doesn't seem particularly motivated to help you build a career. Speaking as someone who's still looking for representation, though, I've found more success in getting read by managers than agents. Managers seem more responsive to email queries, whether they are targeted queries, referrals, and making contact via other business connections.

I've got a script I feel pretty good about, and so after I finish my next polish, I'm going to do my next round of calling in business connections, favors and a few specifically targeted queries to very precise people. My list absolutely has more managers than agents, largely because I anticipate a greater success ratio in actually getting those people interested in my work.

The downside is that if you've got an agent and a manager, between the two of them, you're going to lose 20% of your paycheck right off the bat to their commissions.

As far as advice that readers of this blog should probably follow, I see no reason that you shouldn't pursue both. I know a couple of people who only have had managers and it hasn't stopped them from optioning and even selling a few (low-budget) scripts.

Obviously any field is going to have some percentage of members that give the greater group a bad name. If you're a starting writer, having someone in your corner like a strong manager wouldn't be a bad thing, just as it wouldn't be terrible to have an agent who's in a good position to package your script.

When you have no credits to your name, I say take either. After you've worked one-on-one with your agent or manager for a while, you'll get a feel for their personal style, their level of commitment to you and if your work is a good fit with his plans. If the two of you seem to be on completely different pages, it might be time for a change.

As I see it, it's not an either/or, at least not in a "one size fits all" way that could sum up either profession.


Rosie asks a question I don't really have an answer for:

What do you view as the key differences between the British film industry and Hollywood? Do these variations result in vastly different scripts?

On my end of things, I don't really deal with many British scripts or productions. At least on a professional level, I can't really offer an informed answer. I know we've got plenty of readers in the UK - anyone feel qualified to weigh in?

Robert asks:

Hey Bitter, have a question on formatting. When you read a script, what type of continuance do you prefer? "..." or "--". I noticed guys like Tony Gilroy love the "--" but guys like Scott Frank (and I would argue the majority of screenwriters) like to employ the "...". Is this more a question of style, or do readers like yourself role your eyes when you see one type over the other?

Strictly speaking, "--" is used at the end of dialogue when the character is interrupted, either by a character or an action. "..." is supposed to be used when a character trails off. If the writer knows what he's doing, they shouldn't be used interchangeably.

Interview with JERICHO and HUMAN TARGET's Robert Levine: Part IV - Writing the Jericho comic book and getting an agent

Part I - Climbing the ladder as a writer's assistant
Part II - Working on Jericho's first season
Part III - Writing Season Two of Jericho

Jericho was canceled again due to low ratings after the second season, but true to its reputation as a show that refuses to die, the storyline was recently continued in a Jericho comic published by Devil’s Due. Rob was given the task of co-writing a few issues in that storyline.

With the death of Bonnie in your last episode, you knew you had something that was going to make everyone on the internet go “Holy shit!” Do you track internet reaction after one of your episodes airs?

Especially on that show because [there was such a passionate following.] I know those people now. They’re still vocal. They read the comic book.

Which is a great segue way into talking about your work on the comic. So in comics, you’re freed from any production concerns.

Yeah!

You can do anything, but is there a point where you feel yourself putting limits on yourself so that it “feels” like Jericho?

No. Not really. Only in terms of wanting to stay with the characters [from the show.] If anything you’re tempted to do too much, and the only limitation in comics realistically is that you only have 22 pages. But at the same time, you’re completely free from limitations in terms of locations, the actors that you’re using. You can use a character in just one scene [and not feel it’s] a waste of money to pay them that much and only use them [so briefly.] It came at a good time for the story, because the story by the end of Season Two wants to explode.

So you can actually show this civil war instead of just being locked into everyone back in their bunker in Jericho?

Now I think the challenge is keeping a story in Jericho going, keeping that interesting now that the scale is so big. It’s been fun.

I’ve got a few readers who want to me to ask if there’s any news about a Jericho movie, and if there’s any bearing that the comic would have on the storyline for that movie.

I don’t know. I don’t know any plans. Jon Turteltaub’s guys would be able to answer that better.

Is there any direction you’ve gotten from them in terms of “You can’t do this in the comic because these characters need to be available for the film?”

Hopefully I’m not talking out of school, but a lot of what we’re using in the comic, I think, is what they had initially talked about for the movie, telling these kinds of stories – Jake and Hawkins on the run with Smith, Jericho becoming an active place of resistance. It’s all that stuff. I’d like to think that if they made the movie they’d either pick up where the comics are leaving off, or basically adapt the story we’re telling on the big screen so you can actually see the stuff with the actors.

But I don’t know. I don’t know where [the movie] stands.

Any desire to keep writing comics after this?

I had to learn from scratch how to do it, and now that I have I want to keep doing it. You know, it has that benefit of minimal production costs. You can do what you want for very little.

Scripting comics is strange because unlike TV or movie writing, there is no set format for comic scripts. I’ve seen some that look like screenplays and some that are just written in paragraphs. Did that take some getting used to?

Yeah, someone said it’s like directing a movie because it’s not just dialogue, it’s what in the frame, what you’re showing, how you’re showing it. I haven’t gotten that adventurous in terms of the pages I’ve written whereas there are other writers for the show who have. Issue four is by a different writer, Matt Federman, and it’s the entire story of John Smith [the character in the show who masterminded the nuclear attacks that begin the story], which is something you could only do in the comics [because he’s not a regular character on the series].

You could never do that on the show. You could never take an entire episode and just devote it to that character. But in this format you can, and it reveals the entire backstory mythology of the show. It spans years. Every question you have gets answered. As a fan, you can move forward. You know the origins of this guy, you know how he did what he did, why he did what he did. It’s an emotional story. It’s great, it’s really great. [And] Federman did much more radical things [than myself] in terms of how the page is arranged, the things you see and how information’s coming out. It’s awesome.

At what point in your career did you obtain representation, and do you have any advice for unrepped writers currently seeking representation?

I obtained representation around the time I was staffed on Jericho, then I changed agencies before the beginning of the second season. From my story, you can see representation didn't make much of a difference in terms of landing my first job. It was the inverse: the fact that I already had a deal made me attractive to agencies, because the hard work was done.

Still, having an agent is important because they'll negotiate your deal for you and even after you're staffed, they're working to get your name out to all the studios, networks and production houses that might hire you in the future.

My advice for unrepped writers is to start approaching agencies as soon as you have a couple pieces of material you feel confident in. Use personal connections if you can. But I would also say you need to manage your expectations in terms of what difference an agent will make at that stage in your career. Obviously, the strength of your writing is a huge factor. But the more relationships you're able to develop on your own, either through your day job or otherwise, the better your chances will be.

Let's talk writing samples. As someone on the inside, what would you tell a writer who was looking to start his TV specs. I hear original pilots are the way to go these days, is that so? What are the essential qualities of a good TV spec?

I think original material is always a good bet, but I wouldn't feel limited to pilots. A short story or a play can suffice just as well.

Remember what your objective is with a writing sample: it's not to sell a specific piece of material. It's to sell you as a writer. Your voice. Your vision. Pilots can do that, but they also come with an added expectation, because a good pilot needs to have more than just a good story, characters and dialogue. It needs to work as a launch for a show that could run several seasons, and if it doesn't suggest that kind of longevity, it will judged on that. Short stories and plays don't carry that expectation. Plus, frankly, they can be shorter, which means someone will be that much more likely to start and finish reading them.

Now, writing plays and prose carry their own challenges, but I think it's worth considering the advantages. Features can work as original samples as well, but again, they tend to be longer.

Those guidelines aside, I think what it boils down to you is fairly simple. Write what you like, what excites you as an audience.

Part V - Writing for Human Target

Where do these terrible scripts come from?

Josh sent me a question via email last week:

Please help reconcile these two thoughts, seemingly at odds:

1. You (and all script readers) frequently gripe about the horrible shit you've had to read set in non-Courier fonts, riddled with typos, and bogged down by trite cliches, exclamation points, song playlists, lengthy descriptions of the ingenue's cleavage, and so many other red flags.

2. It's virtually impossible to get an unrepresented script onto your desk.

Therefore, by law of modus tollens, are these affronts to screenwriting being delivered by managers and agents? How and why does this happen? How does my screenplay, unrepresented but otherwise respectable, land on a gatekeeper's desk?

First, good question, Josh. When I first started working as a reader, I had plenty of days where I thought to myself, "How did this manage to squeak through the system to the point where I have to read this drek?" I'll try to explain the most common reasons a really amateurish spec can get to someone reading for an agency or production company.

Favors. Yeah, you knew this was coming. The Development VP's college roommate's kid just wrote an "awesome" sci-fi adventure; or maybe that junior agent at International Creative Artists Agents for the Performing Arts has a friend who persuaded him to submit his script. Either way, you're the one stuck reading it. I'd probably guess that 3 out of 5 times, when a reader complains about bad formatting in a spec, this is the cause.

Queries. It's rare, but it happens every now and then that a query from a newbie might find the right executive or agent at the right moment. Maybe the writer knew how to pitch the script but not to write it - and if you're the poor bastard reading for agent or executive, you'll find that out really fast.

I'd also group the Slush Pile in with these, as there may be some smaller agents and managers who will accept anything so long as it comes with a release form. (Whether those managers are at all useful to one's career is another matter.) The Slush Pile is a curious entity. At times it's unclear just where all these scripts came from, or why we're wasting resources on reading them. My own theory is that bad scripts often mate and spawn in there.

Contests. If you're reading for a smaller agency or management company, it's possible that your bosses will either sponsor a screenplay contest, or at least work out a deal where they read the Top 10 scripts from said contest. A lot of these contests, quite frankly, aren't that good. The quality of submission is often as poor as anything you'll find on the slush pile.

Now, you might be thinking "Yeah, but aren't the readers supposed to weed out the bad ones?" It doesn't always work that way. My first internship was with such a company and they had the INTERNS doing the reading. People almost as inexperienced as the writers were making the call as to what made it to the final rounds. You'll also often see internet ads seeking contest readers, and often, their criteria for those readers might be lax. Usually, the less they pay, the worse you can count on the readers to be. I've seen some places advertise that they pay the readers $20-$30 a script for coverage. That's close to slave wages for readers - and so a lot of good readers don't apply. Thus, you're left with people who might not know what to look for. The same thing goes for peer review contests, like the late, lamented Project Greenlight.

Also, when I read for Big Deal Agency, they requested the Top Ten Finalists from a competition that I'd describe as a mid-level contest. I read at least four of those and a lot of them were as weakly written as material I'd seen back in screenwriting classes, and they included a generous helping of Our Favorite Mistakes.

Readers working for script consulting companies, like the ones mentioned here, probably see a lot of scripts that treat script formatting like Ned Beatty in Deliverance. (Too old a reference? Then assume I said, "like Zed treats Ving Rhames in Pulp Fiction." If that's not clear enough, then I can't help you.)

And though it's rare to find major formatting issues in scripts sent out by agents and managers, I've seen it happen. There are a lot of bottom-of-the-barrel agencies out there, and if my experience when reading for a producer who loved horror is anything to go by, they lack a critical eye towards the material and sometimes the formatting of said material. You might not find mechanical formatting errors in these scripts, but you'll find damn near everything else - including long descriptions of cleavage, song selections, and all our other favorite red flags. Sad as it is to say, there are some agents who just don't care.

I hope this answers your question, Josh.

Tuesday Talkback: Landing that first job

Eddie Manna wrote in last week with this question:

I'm about to finally make the move to LA and had a question about finding a job with a writing staff. I've finished a few mediocre screenplays (they have their strengths but I can admit are not exceptional at this point) and am wrapping another which I believe to be by far my best work. All my readers (and I personally) can tell I am getting better with each attempt and I believe that ultimately I can write professional quality work. I also have an MBA and spent the last few years working a Wall Street job.

My question is do you have any advice to aspiring writers seeking entry level staff writing jobs? Of course landing a spec sale is what every screenwriter dreams of, and I will continue to develop my spec ideas along the way, but it seems clear aiming for a more humble entree into the writing world is a more realisitic goal. When I get to LA I will of course attempt to network like crazy via writing/acting classes and seminars but any additional advice would me greatly appreciated.

I'm tempted to go for the easy joke about the only job market less stable than Wall Street these days is the entertainment industry, but I'll let that one slide.

If you're coming out here with no agent, no connections and nothing but a spec, expecting to land a staff writing job on a TV show right away is probably unrealistic. The uber-simplified version of what you need to do is:

1) get your script in the hands of an agent.
2) have that agent fall in love with it.
3) have that agent find showrunners who also fall in love with him
4) impress the hell out of showrunners when you go in for a meeting.

None of those steps are easy, and everyone's story is different. For one such example, check out this part of my interview with Dan Callahan about how he sold his first script. Dan was luckier than most. His one connection at a big agency happened to love his spec and went out with it more or less immediately.

The other route to go is to get hired as a production assistant on a series, work your way up to writer's assistant, and eventually that can lead to writing episodes of the show. I recall that one of David E. Kelly's assistants had written a spec for Boston Legal and gave it to him for notes. He liked it so much that he decided they were going to produce it as an actual episode. Every now and then things like this happen - but remember, most of those lucky writers spent a lot of time "paying their dues" by getting coffee and rolling calls.

Which leads my to my Tuesday Talkback question: for those of you who live or have lived in LA, how did you "play your dues" when you first came out here? Any career strategy advice for Eddie?

Interview with COLLEGE and DEMOTED Screenwriter Dan Callahan: PART II – Getting an Agent and Selling the Script

Part I – The Writing Process

Our chat with screenwriter Dan Callahan continues as he answers the question most aspiring writers want to know: “How do you get an agent?”

Dan Callahan: There’s all these levels to writing movies. First is coming up with a good idea, or a simple idea like College, that’s so simple that people are like, “Why didn’t I think of that?” That’s hard enough as it is. It’s hard to come up with something that’s original, or something that’s not so original but that you can put your own twist on it. Then you’ve gotta [write it up], and then you have to finish the draft, which a lot of people don’t do. Then you have to show it to people, and get notes, and make all those changes. Then finally it’s like “Okay, I did ALL that stuff and I have a script” and then it’s, “Shit. I don’t have anyone to send my script around. I don’t have an agent. I’m just sitting on material that I’ve worked months for and how do I get it out to the community?”

Getting an agent is impossible because there’s that Catch-22 everyone complains about where production companies won’t look at your stuff unless it comes through an agent. If I can’t get an agent, how can I get it in front of [them?] It’s very rare you can just query an agent – specifically at the big agencies – and they’re gonna take a look at this thing. It’s happened, I heard a story… I think Hitch was a query letter, so I’m told. So it does happen, but I think it’s very difficult.

Query letters for the most part don’t work. A lot of times there’s legal reasons for that…. At the same time [agents] are working with professional writers, trying to get them work, so do they really have time to read some dude from wherever who says he wrote the next great script?

The long story short is that Adam had a friend at an agency. It’s one of the easiest ways in – checking all your contacts and all you need is one. Whether it’s a friend of a friend of a friend who works at a production company or is already a screenwriter, or a director, producer… It’s finding someone you know, or have a connection to who’s in the business.

The fact that Adam and I moved out here, and lived out here for some years… we had contacts. One of the reasons he knew the girl at this agency [was that he lived out here in LA.] If he’d been in Chicago, he wouldn’t have known this person. So it’s important that if you want to be a professional screenwriter, you gotta live in LA. Spend numerous years out here and over the course of those years, you’re gonna meet people in the business. You’re gonna have other friends trying to do the same thing you do and eventually one of those people are gonna be in a position where they can help you out or they can at least pass the script along to somebody.

And that’s exactly what happened. We gave it to a friend at ICM. She had read pages earlier and liked it and then when we finished the script we went back and gave it to her. And it was sort of bad timing because she liked it… and then told us she was quitting [the agency business.] We were like, “Ugh… just when we think we’ve got an agent at a big agency, she says, I’m leaving to be a writer.” She’s gone on to a very successful career of writing books.

What was nice of her was before she left, she passed the script off to a colleague of hers at ICM. He was from Chicago. Adam and I are both from Chicago, so she thought we’d all hit it off. We thought that a guy would be good for something like College… She gave it to him, a guy named Nate Ross. He read it on vacation and came back and was like, “I’ll take it out next week.” It literally was that quick. He read it. He knew what it was. He liked it. I don’t even remember if he had any notes. If he did, they were minor. Stuff we could fix in a week. He basically said, “Fix this. Get it ready. We’ll take it out next week.”

Bitter Script Reader: Wow.

DC: But the reason we had our agent was because we felt we wrote a strong piece of material that was professional in every way, that was funny, and all that stemmed from all that stuff I was talking about. That all lead to this moment and we got our one shot with this guy and he felt we delivered and because of that, he took us on. Now, if he’d hated College… it would have been “Okay we need to figure out another way into the agencies.” Maybe we wouldn’t have ended up at a big agency. Maybe we would have ended up at a smaller agency. It might never have sold. But the fact of the matter is, when we had that opportunity, the script delivered and that was the start.

BSR: Did it sell fairly quickly once you went out with it?

DC: No. It didn’t. You’ll hear these stories about how something was a hot spec and every studio is bidding on it, but that wasn’t our situation at all. It went out to everybody and the way it usually works is your agent takes your script and he sends it out to various producers he has relationships with and the ones that like it come back and say, “We like College and we have a relationship at studio A… We’d like to bring the script into Paramount… or Sony, and that’s how it works. Generally scripts don’t go to studios. They usually go to producers first, who usually have deals or relationships and they bring it into the studio and say “Hey, this is a piece of material we’d like to do. Will you buy it for us?”

So we had multiple producers taking it out all over town. College took quite a while [to sell]. At the time there were a couple teen comedies floating around that we were competing with. A lot of studios had teen comedies that had been sitting around for a while that they were having trouble getting made, so why add another one?

BSR: Yeah, “We already have ours.”

DC: When American Pie hit there was a flood of teen scripts and it never stopped. So the studios were sitting on piles of teen comedies. They weren’t making them, but they had plenty of them so they didn’t need another one. And there were people that just didn’t like the script, for whatever reason. It’s a mixture of timing, finding the right producers and finding a studio that’s looking for a funny teen comedy.

BSR: A lot of stars have to align.

DC: And it didn’t for a while. What eventually happened was there was a producer named Rene Rigal who worked at a company called State Street, that did the Barbershop movies. He read College, thought it was funny… He actually called me and Adam and was one of the most passionate producers about it that we had talked to. The script had been dying down and we weren’t sure it was going to sell so, yeah, if there’s anyone that’s this excited about our work – that’s the kind of guy you want out there.

So Rene and State Street had a deal with Fox. They took it to Fox Atomic, who at the time was trying to do a Revenge of the Nerds remake, so they passed because it was the same thing. Then [State Street] took it to a company called Element that was independently financed. They did Waiting… they were working on Mr. Brooks at the time. And they liked it. They had money. Rene and State Street were the ones who got the ball rolling with Element and they essentially bought it.

And it’s not like they just buy it. They optioned it first, which is the normal process that happens. Now it’s “Can you get the script to where they want it?”

BSR: And it’s on you to bring it up to snuff.

DC: The general process is: agent takes script to producers. Producers take script to studios. They option the project. The reason they don’t buy it up front is, what if they don’t make the movie? The purchase price of a script can be very expensive. So generally studios don’t want to put out hundreds of thousands of dollars, or whatever it is – six figures generally – on something they may not make. What they generally do is put out a couple thousand dollars to option it, control the rights of the script for a certain period of time.

BSR: And you get paid when it goes into production.

DC: And you get paid when it goes into production. It’s not like people think when they read in the trades that something was just flat-out bought…

BSR: Yeah, Paramount just bought it and you walk in and they hand you your Ed McMahon-sized check…

DC: Yeah, [the perception is] they hand you a big check. [In reality] that’s not the case and it’s not smart business on the studio’s part. Why put up [a lot of] money when I could put up this much money, take the option and put the script in development? Now let’s see if we can get actors and a director. Now let’s get a start date. And they literally wait until that start date before you see any purchase price, because anything can happen before that.

There’s a lot of work involved when you get to that place and it’s one of the reasons you see writers making sacrifices, doing things in their script that they might not totally agree with because at the end of the day they want to get it made. At the end of the day, it’s a much larger payday.

BSR: The difference between five figures and six figures is kind of a motivating factor.

DC: Right, you want credit and you want to get paid. Now, there can be six figure options, so it can happen that you do hit the lottery on the option.

BSR: But not with two first-time screenwriters I imagine.

DC: In our case, that wasn’t it. There weren’t studios clamoring for the project. There were people circling but it wasn’t a case where people were so hot on the spec that people were just throwing money at us. We got a very small option and now it was a matter of us getting the project in a position where we could get a director. Because this movie wasn’t about cast.

Tomorrow: Dealing with notes and rewriting, and we’ll discuss casting and the comparisons to SUPERBAD.

Part III – Notes, Rewriting, Casting and SUPERBAD
Part IV – More Rewrites
Part V – Release and Reaction

More on queries

Just an addendum to Thursday's post... Amanda the Aspiring TV Writer has a post today on her blog about queries that's worth checking out. For what it's worth, she's probably got more direct contact with the process than I do, so give it a look.

Next week... ER Week!